


don't tell me that we've grown for having loved a little while

by sweetpeasprite



Category: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, i genuinely don't know how to tag this fic, it's a lil angsty ngl, oliver is friends with his magic. that's it, these tags suck i'm bad at this please i promise this fic isn't weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27391783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetpeasprite/pseuds/sweetpeasprite
Summary: Magic likes Oliver. Oliver likes magic.
Relationships: Oliver (Ni no Kuni) & Magic, nonono okay hear me out
Comments: 16
Kudos: 41





	don't tell me that we've grown for having loved a little while

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song hello my old heart by the oh hellos!!
> 
> oliver........ and his magic...................... firendms :] that's all i have to say on that!

Magic likes Oliver.

When he first holds a stick with ancient writing on the side in his hand and a book full of spells in the other, he isn't quite sure what to do. Then, Drippy tells him to cast Gateway, and the book almost knows what he's thinking, and turns to the correct page automatically.

He hasn't read the instructions on how to cast a spell. He just holds his wand in the air and draws the rune on the page by instinct, and it _appears,_ right in front of him, and as he draws the second stroke it starts to glow. The magic of the rune travels to the tip of the wand, and as the spell casts, before Oliver is thrown back in a blast of light, it trickles down the wand and into Oliver's hand. _Hello,_ it says. _We've been waiting for you._

Oliver watches a door fit for a cathedral form in front of him, hears Drippy cheer for his success, and thinks that maybe he can do this after all.

As he steps through the gate, looking across the plains of this new world, there's something… _new_ there. It's the same feeling as when he had cast Gateway, only muted. It's magic, he realises, breathing in this new world's air, so much cleaner than in Motorville. He looks up at the rock formations, platforms that tower above him, he watches the trees rustle in the wind, and he feels the _magic_ in the air that he could never quite feel before.

It feels weirdly… homely.

Oliver likes it.

\---

Fire _really_ likes Oliver.

He casts his first Fireball in the Deep Dark Wood and the flame swirls around the wand in excitement. It flares up and dances in front of his eyes. _Hi!_ it says. _Hello! Hi! It's good to see you! Hello!_ Oliver smiles and hopes it's enough of a greeting back. It seems to be, as the fire flares excitedly, saying something unintelligible to Oliver's senses, then hits the creature dead on and kills it in one shot.

Oliver stares as the beast vanishes in a puff of smoke and glims, then glances down at Drippy, who watches the glims bounce around with raised eyebrows, then looks up at Oliver and shrugs. Oliver hums, and continues down the path.

At the end of the wood, in a clearing, there's a guardian with madness in his eyes. Oliver blocks one of his attacks, and a gold orb pops off of him. He grabs it, and the magic burns around his chest, and the fire flares up and yells and shrieks in glee, and it swirls around and the flames rise around Oliver as it tells him to _aim, fire, aim, fire,_ and so he listens.

Later on, as they're travelling back to Ding Dong Dell and it starts getting dark, they start a fire to hunker down for the night. Drippy falls asleep almost immediately, of course, but Oliver stares into the flames and watches the smoke rise. And he knows, he _knows,_ you don't have to tell him it's a bad idea, but he cautiously reaches his hand out and allows the fire to lick at his palm. He jumps back as soon as he touches it, but then he realises it doesn't burn him, and that the fire is now leaning over, reaching for his hand. So he obliges.

The fire curls around his hand, yelling and laughing in ecstasy, and never once hurting him. It shouts and screams and tells him how long it's wanted to meet him, wanted to be his friend.

As Oliver watches the fire shout and burn in elation, happy to finally know him, he doesn't feel quite as alone.

\---

Water doesn't really like Oliver.

He first casts Frostbite in the Golden Grove, and while all his Fireballs had buzzed with warmth before, Frostbite is, for lack of a better word, cold. It seeps into his hand, the one holding the wand, and it gives him a curt _hello._ No further greeting. It knocks the enemies down, and kills those already weakened.

Oliver is nice to water anyway. The water doesn't seem to care whether he casts it, but more often than not Oliver finds himself choosing Fireball over it, in respect. He doesn't think it wants to be cast. Until, that is, he casts Frostbite against Rusty's Nightmare, and the ice bites and howls at the ghost, knocking it back in anger. The water seems… hurt. Oliver wonders why.

Before embarking to the Temple of Trials, he sits by the fountains near the inn in Al Mamoon and gently reaches his hand into the water, feeling it flow through his fingers. It's a silent question, and the water hesitates before answering. It's sad, it says, because he is. It tells him it didn't mean to make him upset. It tells him it knows he's avoiding it.

Oliver thinks back to his mother in a hospital bed, telling him to be good and slipping away as he held her hand and cried. He tells the water he knows it didn't mean it, and that he forgives it even so.

The water swirls around his fingertips, crying for him.

The next time he casts Frostbite, it's against Bashura. The ice hits its mark exactly, spiking into the monster's chest and hissing and snapping at it. Oliver smiles as Bashura goes down, and the water returns his smile in its own way.

\---

Storm doesn't trust Oliver.

Horace gives him the spell for Cloudburst in Yule, gazing out at the snow with a far-off look in his eyes. He accepts it, but stops when he reads the name. _Cloudburst._ He's not sure why it sounds familiar.

He doesn't cast it on the Winter Isles, purely because he doesn't know how storm magic works, and he doesn't want to cause a blizzard. The first time he tries it, it's just outside Skull Mountain, on their way back to Kublai with all three stones. He draws the rune in the air cautiously, and the magic that comes out snaps a vague greeting that Oliver's not even sure translates to English all that well. The magic feels… too _familiar._ Like he's done this before, like he's mastered the storm when he hasn't even felt it before. Cloudburst buzzes and tenses and braces itself.

Then the magic goes… still. Like it's expecting Oliver to do something. To tell it something.

Oliver decides to let it do whatever it wants.

It hesitates, then swirls around the enemies, hailing rain down on them and pelting them with sharpened wind, screaming and roaring and fighting. Then, the storm dissipates. There's a hint of confusion behind it.

That day, they travel to Hamelin to see Marcassin. He has no answers about the stones, but the see-through Xanaduvian guard outside the palace does. By coincidence, or maybe not, there's a storm. It had been getting dark when they entered the kingdom walls anyway, so they stay at the inn for the night.

Oliver quietly sneaks out of their shared room after midnight and exits Hamelin altogether. The roof over the kingdom doesn't allow rain to get in, after all.

When he gets outside, he sits on the grass under the metal awning attached to Hamelin's walls and watches the rain pelt down in front of him. There's a flash of lightning that makes him jump, the thunder coming soon after. He takes a deep breath, and stands up, stepping out into the storm.

The storm swirls around him. It asks him why he let it do what it wanted, why he just let it _go_ like that. A good wizard controls his spells, it tells him. A good wizard channels the storm.

Oliver asks it why? He says all he's here to do is point out a target. Fire and light like him, he says. Water does, too. Why treat them without the respect they deserve?

The storm slows down for just a second. Oliver sits down on the dirt, waiting to see if it says anything more. The sun is rising by the time the storm leaves, fading away until it's just Oliver there, soaked, sitting in the mud.

The next time Oliver casts Cloudburst, he points it to a creature and it attacks with fervour, howling and snapping at it. Drippy asks how he managed to do that - he says most wizards have a hard time learning the storm. Oliver watches the last of the Cloudburst dissipate, smiles, and then shrugs.

\---

Light loves Oliver.

Oliver receives the Arrow of Light spell from the old Emperor of Hamelin, and the page almost buzzes in his hand. He first casts it going along the Tombstone Trail, and the rune glows and _glows_ and the magic is softer than fire, yet Oliver can feel it burn with just as much elation. _Hello,_ it says, joyful, with a smile in its voice. _It's nice to meet you! I'll do my best!_

Oliver thinks the voice feels vaguely like his. He grins back and tells it it's nice to meet it, too.

Light buzzes happily, laughing and laughing and dancing around his hand as though it's the best day of its existence, and the spell hits its mark and the creature poofs away in _one hit,_ which hasn't happened in a _while._ Oliver's friends look at him in surprise and shock. He's still grinning like a maniac. Drippy tells him Arrow of Light is a tricky spell to aim. Oliver shrugs, smiling, and carries forward. Every single one of his Arrows of Light hits their mark, though none of them hit as hard as the first. He catches Gascon making a face at him for it. He doesn't really care.

Mornstar's guardian goes down to an Arrow of Light from Marcassin. Oliver thanks him, but light had been so elated to finally see the tomb of the Wizard King that it had rubbed off on him, and he had to stop himself from racing in there ahead of his friends.

When he picks up Mornstar, he feels light squeak and laugh and cheer around him, whistling around and picking his cape up. He smiles.

Light walks and runs and skips alongside him through getting the three stones for Mornstar, cheering every time he comes into contact with one. There's almost always light in the world, after all, so Oliver doesn't need to do anything to hear its voice. With the red stone, the other elements join in, cheering and celebrating when he defeats Cap'n Crossbones. With the yellow stone, light shrieks and yells with joy, far louder than it was with the other two. With the blue stone, light still cheers, but there's a voice… missing. Oliver couldn't explain it if he tried, but something just… isn't there, with the blue stone. He wonders over it for a few days, but pushes it to the back of his mind when bigger things come up.

Light helps him through the Miasma Marshes, it listens to the Clarion along with him, and it helps him heal when need be.

Then Vileheart shows up, and light sees the Soulsnare in his hand, and Oliver can feel it recoil. And it starts _crying._

Light asks him not to fight. It _begs_ him to walk away, it tries to pull him back, it tells him that that's _danger_ and to _please get away, you're going to get hurt, please please please._ It asks him to walk away, to come back when Vileheart isn't here, to go to Nevermore another day. Oliver doesn't listen. He sees the Soulsnare and his mom is _right there,_ she's _there,_ he's about to finally save her. The Miasma Marshes are dark - light's voice is faint. He raises his wand, going into battle, and light sobs.

Oliver's Arrows of Light still always hit their mark. But every time he casts one, light _screams_ at him to stop. He doesn't listen. He watches Vileheart, the Soulsnare in his veiny hand, and fights for his mom. When Vileheart goes down, and the Soulsnare drops in his place, light _shrieks_ and _wails_ at Oliver to _not touch it, don't, bad bad bad, please._ Oliver ignores the light, and picks up the purple glass ball anyway.

He wakes up in Shadar's castle. Light doesn't have a voice anymore. It's more unsettling than he thought it would be.

Then he learns the truth, and he sobs and shrieks in the echo of the throne room until he manages to somehow get back to his room in Motorville. He curls up in a ball on his bed, sobbing into his knees, and thinks he wouldn't mind staying here for a long, long while. And so he does.

After days of sitting in his room, Pea appears. She tells him he has people to save. She tells him he's already saved so many. Oliver sobs into his arms, and Pea smiles as she fades away.

As he's waking up, Oliver feels light's presence near him. He calls out, apologising for ignoring it, apologising for hearing its calls and doing nothing. Light forgives him immediately, because of course it does, and tells him that he's strong, and that it believes in him. Oliver listens. He listens, and _listens,_ and light laughs and hugs him and dries his tears, and when he wakes up to a terrified Drippy at his bedside, he feels his magic strengthen.

He meets Vileheart on the cliff and the light _shouts_ and _screams_ as it attacks the one who hurt Oliver so badly. Oliver lets it. When the battle is over, light twirls around his wand in glee. Oliver smiles, and his heart feels lighter.

\---

Dark cries when it meets Oliver.

Evenstar appears in Oliver's Wizard's Companion after he wakes from defeating Shadar. Oliver's friends aren't there when he first casts it. He takes a simple bounty from Swift Solutions, and leaves to do it on his own. He finds the beast, it having been damaging a researcher's work on Shipwreck Shore, and doesn't even wait to cast Evenstar. Darkness swells around him. _Thank you,_ it says, instead of a greeting, and Oliver realises it sounds choked up. _Thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved me._

Dark is more gentle than Oliver expected. It still kills the enemy in one hit, the attack snarling and biting the creature until the darkness cracks and splinters into itself, but its voice is soft, quiet, tender.

Oliver sits in the entranceway to the Vault of Tears and listens. Dark cries and cries and tells him its waited for him for so long, waited to be saved, waited to not be scared. It tells Oliver Shadar was precise in his spells, he controlled the darkness as best he could, narrowed it down as far as it could go. Dark tells Oliver that it was scared it wasn't going to get to meet him, that he'd be dead, and that it would be its fault.

Oliver can't touch the darkness like he can with fire, water and storm. He tells it that it wouldn't be its fault anyway, even if he weren't here right now, even if he hadn't come back. The dark swirls around him, crying and sobbing and thanking him over and over and over. Oliver sits there until dark has nothing else to say.

The next time Oliver casts Evenstar, the dark doesn't say anything, but he can feel its warmth and gratitude anyway.

\---

Oliver lays back on the grass in a field on the Rolling Hills, gazing up at the night sky. The sky itself is dark, but the stars glitter across it, little bits of light shining through.

He takes a deep breath. He's defeated Shadar, and the White Witch. He's going home to Motorville tomorrow. He may as well make the most of the magic in the air while he's got it.

Motorville's air, no matter how green the town gets, will never be quite as clear, quite as magical as the air in this world. He holds Mornstar out in front of him, tracing the stones with his fingers, and hums.

The next day, Oliver casts Gateway. The magic trickles down to his hand. _Did you have fun?_ it asks, kindly. _Come back anytime. We'd love to have you._

He smiles. Oliver likes magic.

**Author's Note:**

> see? see? friends! friends!!!!!!
> 
> yell at me on tumblr: @sweetpea-sprite  
> or on twitter: @demidemipancake


End file.
